Social media plays big role in severe weather coverage

(WMC-TV) - Social media is changing what it means to "like" something. It changed what it means to be "friends." It is also changing what it means to go through a winter storm.

"I have been here for over a year now," said Action News 5 Traffic Tracker Janeen Gordon. "I have never seen my traffic map look like this. It is covered in accidents."

She was right. There were hundreds of wrecks during the Wednesday morning commute. In Memphis alone, police reported working on more than 120 weather-related crashes since 12 a.m. That number does not include the surrounding areas, where road conditions were reported to be even worse.

Tony Dean turned to Action News 5. He says between the app and the on air coverage, he knew what roads to avoid. He credits social media for keeping him aware.

"There'e been a lot of crazy weather across the nation that I've seen. It's been crazy weather," he said.

But make sure you always look before you retweet. Late Tuesday night, a fake SCS account was created on Twitter and the one tweet it sent out before being disabled was relaying false information.

SCS officials say you should not always rely on social media.

"We wont send out any information just haphazardly, we'll send it out all at once," said SCS Chief of Staff Reginald Porter.